'Men behind you.' Lee placed a hand on his shoulder. 'Got plenty of them days ahead of you.'
'Rondell Cheldric,' Cantrell read while pacing back and forth before closing the file folder he cradled.
'You know my name?'
'Folks call you Mulysa. 'Asylum' spelled backwards.'
'You got that, huh?'
'I'm a clever Uncle Tom.'
'Yeah.' He stopped short of an apology but flashed an 'it's all in the game' slow nod. 'We all out here: you, me, fiends. Like the circle of life. Doing our thing. But in the end, we all get got. Dirt piled on us like we was shit folks trying to hide. That's why it so important to leave a strong name behind.'
'A fierce rep,' Cantrell agreed.
'True dat.'
'You in big trouble, Rondell.' Cantrell had a way of using a person's own name as a club, repeating it in a way that forced the person to deal with him.
'Why? I didn't do nothin'.'
'You hit a cop. That's something.'
'He was touching my-'
''Bitches.' Yeah, we'll get to that later,' Cantrell said. 'Assaulting an officer, in front of other officers.'
'You going down for that, Rondell,' Lee clubbed.
'You got to pay.'
'That's how it works.'
'You do. You pay.'
This was the part of the dance that Cantrell loved, the stage on which they performed. When they fell into a rhythm, knew each other's plays, and today they were in the zone. Rondell didn't stand a chance as they took turns whittling the big man down to a more manageable, a malleable size.
'Do you know who we are, Rondell?' Cantrell eased away from the table, giving Mulysa room to breathe and settle down. Pull back on the throttle, let him take in the scenery and fully appreciate the jackpot he was in. They actually didn't have much of anything on him. It would have been a fairly friendly conversation — albeit with all the requisite chest thumping — had Mulysa not chosen to act all foolish. All they had was his name and knew that he was mixed up in the situation somehow. Anything he and his bitches had been up to hadn't been reported to the police. Still, he didn't know what they knew. Maybe his bitches would give him up. Blood was hard to clean up.
'You murder police.' Mulysa came out of his stupor from watching the pair of detectives sidle back and forth.
'You know what that means?'
'Someone's been murdered.'
'Exacta-mundo.' Cantrell pointed the folder at him with the beaming smile of a proud parent, then set it on the table. Mulysa turned to face him. A scar underlined his right eye and he was thick like a tree stump, though his blue jeans still hung from him like drapes. Cantrell resisted the urge to snatch the boy's wave cap from his head.
'What do you do for a living?'
'Freelance entrepreneur.'
'You hear this shit?'
'Drug-dealing scum. You got that on a business card?'
'I'm into a little bit of this, little bit of that,' Mulysa said, not acknowledging Lee. He understood the dance. The disorienting effect of their back and forth, meant to unnerve him. Rattle him to the point where he gave something up. But they had nothing on him. Hadn't even told him what he was being charged with. So he relaxed and allowed himself to get caught up in their little banter game.
'How long have you been a 'freelance entrepreneur'?' Cantrell asked.
'Goin' on three years.'
'You like it?'
'It a-ight.'
'You like women, Rondell?' Cantrell sat down on the corner of the table closest to Mulysa, drawing his attention.
'Yeah.' His breath reeked on top of the wafts of his body odor, a mix of garbage, funk, and unwashed ass.
'I mean, it's all right if you don't.'
'I do.'
'He look gay to you?' Cantrell asked.
'He could be half a fag,' Lee offered. 'Maybe he just prison gay.'
'I ain't no fag.'
'That's a double negative,' Cantrell said.
'Means you are,' Lee echoed.
'I ain't.'
'That's what they call a Freudian slip,' Cantrell said. 'Part of you may think that you are.'
'I… it… I ain't.' The questions and innuendo flew furiously at Mulysa. He wasn't having time to think through the questions, much less his answers. Hated the way they twisted things, damned cops. Not to mention his head ping-ponging back and forth. Cantrell sat entirely too close. Lee pressed in on him with his imposing stance, glaring at him with clenched fists burrowing into the table.
'It's all right if you are,' Cantrell said.
'These days you can screw fish if it's your orientation,'
Lee said. 'Don't take the blame. Blame God.'
'He made you that way,' Cantrell said.
'He didn't,' Mulysa said.
'You got a moms?' Cantrell raised up from the table.
'Yeah,' Mulysa said, the sudden veer in the conversation left a slight tremor to his voice. He didn't know where this was going either. A spirit of unease crept into his posture. Though he had a practiced relaxed slouch, his thick frame sprawled out in the chair; he was suddenly conscious of it. Uncomfortable. But didn't know how to shift or straighten up without appearing weak. Or guilty.
'You got a sister?'
'Two.'
'They bitches?'
'What the hell?'
'No offense, man, but you seem to like the word,' Cantrell said. 'Just rolls off your tongue with ease.'
'Bitches.' Lee emphasized the word as if savoring a fine filet.
'They your bitches.' Cantrell quoted Mulysa.
'No. I'd never disrespect my moms.'
'Bitches.' Cantrell shook his head disapprovingly. 'You like to hit women, Rondell?'
'Naw.'
'Not according to your sheet. Looks to me like you don't like women at all.' Cantrell pointed dramatically to Mulysa's sheet. 'What's that say?'
Lee studied the sheet carefully. 'Battery. Dispute with your girlfriend. Ended with a bloody nose.'
'Those charges were dropped,' Mulysa protested.
'They about the only ones,' Cantrell said.
'I keep getting pinched.'
'You been a bad boy, Rondell.' Cantrell shifted his weight to edge closer to him.
'Bad boy, indeed,' Lee echoed from too close behind him.
'She got off easy though, didn't she?' Cantrell pulled up another file, this time not letting him see the pages. Anyone could be broken down given enough time and the right circumstances. The need to confess, to get one's story out before it was written for them was a powerful compulsion. They were far afield of their original intent, but the vibe of the room dictated their conversation. And it felt like they were onto some dirt of his. Something with a
